The G train, the system’s only line that connects Queens and northern Brooklyn without going through Manhattan, has been shuttered since the storm. While the East River flooded most of the authority’s affected lines, the G was felled by the waters of Newtown Creek, a crossing probably unfamiliar to most riders.

The L line has operated at only a handful of stations in Brooklyn, from Broadway Junction to Rockaway Parkway. Officials said flooding in the line’s 14th Street tunnel has proved especially difficult to address because the tunnel crossed the river at a wider point than some other East River subway tubes.

The authority said the L had been pumped dry by Tuesday, finally allowing workers to assess any damage to switches or other equipment. The G’s Greenpoint tube has also been pumped, but the authority said “extensive work remains” to repair the signal system.

Joseph J. Lhota, the authority’s chairman, said he was hopeful that the G would be restored by Wednesday. He said he would push to bring back L service on Wednesday, too, but acknowledged that this had “a lower probability of happening.”

“Those are two lines that have had not just water but an enormous amount of silt,” Mr. Lhota said in a telephone interview.

For the G train, said Adam Lisberg, the authority’s chief spokesman, a simple math problem also loomed.

“The average weekday ridership is 125,000,” he said of the G train. “The average weekday ridership of the Lexington Avenue line, the 4/5/6, is 1.8 million. We do our repairs in order of getting as many people as possible back online.”

The absence of subway service has forced G and L train riders to find alternatives to get to work or school. Some have used bicycles or ferries; others have tried the extra buses that the transportation authority has offered to patch gaps in service.

But for longtime residents, the holes in service also called to mind an era, not so long ago, before neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Greenpoint became magnets for the hip.

Ed Veneziano, 57, the owner of Cato’s Army and Navy, a clothing store in Greenpoint, said he was reminded of his early days at the store, which his parents founded, when he often stayed with friends in Manhattan rather than braving a trip home on the perilous L train.

Photo

With the L line operating at only a handful of stations in Brooklyn and the G line closed since Hurricane Sandy, riders have turned to alternatives like the East River Ferry.Credit
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

“You’ve completely stranded north Brooklyn,” he said of the post-storm transit system. “There’s no way anyone can get anywhere.”

Jonathan Ames, the novelist and memoirist whose HBO series “Bored to Death” chronicled the misadventures of a Brooklyn private detective, recalled using the L in the mid-1990s, “at the very beginning of Williamsburg’s renaissance.”

“I’m surprised the L isn’t getting loved,” said Mr. Ames, adding that he used to drive a tattered car to Williamsburg, park it, then take the L into Manhattan. “The G train still is much maligned, which is a good word since the ‘G’ is silent.”

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A study last year found that ridership on the L had grown at three times the systemwide rate since 1998. In June, the transportation authority said it was adding 98 weekly round trips on the line, in a bid to ease overcrowding and waiting times.

“I’m willing to do cartwheels and a headstand and splits if the L train or at least the G train starts running,” said Chris Oh, 32, who has lived in Williamsburg for over four years. “I refuse to take buses.”

Many have turned to ferries, despite what some residents described as 90-minute waits. Some said they had shifted their work schedules to arrive and leave early, before the ferries were full.

Jenna Perry, 26, a hair stylist who lives and works near the L train, said she had been hitching rides into Manhattan with her boyfriend since the storm, until his car ran out of gas.

Her friend, Jenna Maceroni, 24, said that she tried biking into the city over the Williamsburg Bridge, but that “it’s getting too cold now.”

On Tuesday, change.org said more than 2,700 Brooklynites had signed a petition asking the authority to install shuttle bus service along the affected routes.

“Because these 2 lines are the lifelines of Williamsburg and Greenpoint,” one person wrote on the petition.

“Because my son is walking two hours to work at minimum pay,” another said.

“Because I am pregnant,” a third wrote, “and it is dangerous for me to take Q62 because people keep pushing me.”

Matt Kerestesy, 32, who recently moved to Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, after living in Williamsburg and Greenpoint for about eight years, said the absences were particularly vexing because the trains had become more reliable in recent years, relatively speaking.

“The G has actually been decent the last few years,” he said. “The L has had its moments where it’s been kind of efficient.”

As a result, Mr. Kerestesy joked, the presidential race in New York State included an unlikely write-in candidate.

“I thought about voting Obama/Biden,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning, “but went with L train/G train at the last minute.”

Nate Schweber and Julie Turkewitz contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on November 7, 2012, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Some Brooklyn Riders Are Left Behind in Revival of the Subway System. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe